In Section 8, which serves about 1,000 families in Utica, the tenant applies for the program and then uses a voucher to look for a unit on the private market, said Christine Pastorelli, director of the city's Section 8 program.

Nearly half of the families that utilize Section 8 in the city live in the center-city, roughly the boundaries of Cornhill.

Why is that?

"The majority, 99 percent, are Utica residents looking in the neighborhood they would have lived in anyway," Pastorelli said.